Uttarā, Princess of Matsya

Uttarā was the daughter of King Virāṭa and Queen Sudeshṇā of the Matsya kingdom. In the Virāṭa Parva she is the pupil of Bṛhannaḷā, who is Arjuna in disguise. She later married Arjuna’s son Abhimanyu. She became the mother of Parīkshit, and through him the Kuru line went on after the war at Kurukshetra.

Pupil of Bṛhannaḷā during the ajñātavāsa

The ajñātavāsa is the year the Pāṇḍavas lived in hiding at Virāṭanagara. In that year Uttarā was a young princess in the antaḥpura (the women’s quarters). Arjuna, disguised as the eunuch Bṛhannaḷā, taught her dance, singing and the related fine arts.

Teacher and pupil kept to full propriety and respect. Uttarā saw Bṛhannaḷā as her teacher. In the text, Arjuna says that she regarded him “like a father”, and he behaved toward her in that way (Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 72).

Uttarā was also the reason for a key moment in the Virāṭa Parva. Her brother Uttara boasted before the women of the court that he needed only a charioteer to face any enemy. Draupadī, who was living there as Sairandhrī, suggested to Uttarā that she name Bṛhannaḷā as the ideal charioteer. This led to Arjuna and Prince Uttara going out together in the Gograhaṇa battle (Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 37).

At the end of that battle, Arjuna took the fine garments of the Kaurava warriors as trophies. He gave them to Uttara to present as gifts to Uttarā and the women of the antaḥpura (Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 64).

Virāṭa’s offer and Arjuna’s refusal

In the Vaivāhika Parva, after the Pāṇḍavas’ true identities were made known to Virāṭa, the king offered Uttarā to Arjuna as a wife. He saw this as the best sign of friendship and honour.

Arjuna refused firmly. He had been Uttarā’s ācārya (teacher) all that year. The bond between teacher and pupil is like the bond between parent and child, and marriage is forbidden in both. To marry her now would raise doubts about what had happened during the year and would spoil the purity of that bond. The right course was to take her as a daughter-in-law, not as a wife (Virāṭa Parva, Chapters 71–72).

Arjuna proposed that Uttarā marry his son Abhimanyu. Abhimanyu was the son of Subhadrā and nephew of Vāsudeva Kṛshṇa, trained in all weapons and full of promise as a hero. Arjuna said of him: “Born of Vāsudeva’s sister, dear to Kṛshṇa, master of all astras, mighty-armed — this Abhimanyu is the right husband for your daughter.” Virāṭa agreed with joy (Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 72).

The marriage to Abhimanyu

The marriage of Uttarā and Abhimanyu was held at Upaplavya with great splendour. Kṛshṇa, Balarāma and the great Yādava warriors brought Abhimanyu there with his mother Subhadrā. Drupada, Dhṛshṭadyumna, Śikhaṇḍī and many kings came. The marriage rites followed Vedic custom.

Uttarā wore all the bridal ornaments and shone “as the daughter of Indra”. Arjuna received her as his daughter-in-law. Yudhishṭhira received her too, with Kṛshṇa presiding. Virāṭa gave rich gifts of horses, elephants and gold in her honour (Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 72).

Her place in the Kuru line

Uttarā’s son by Abhimanyu is Parīkshit. He was the last king of the Kuru line. The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam was narrated to him by Śuka Mahāmuni. Uttarā was the one through whom the Kuru line went on after the destruction at Kurukshetra.

The Brahmāśiras and the protection of Parīkshit

After the war, in the Aishīka sub-parva of the Sauptika Parva, Uttarā stood at the centre of a most serious event. Aśvatthāmā was cornered on the bank of the Bhāgīrathī by Bhīma and the Pāṇḍavas who chased him. He charged a blade of grass with the Brahmāśiras mantra and let it go with these words:

Apa-Pāṇḍavam bhavatu

This means “Let there be no more Pāṇḍavas.”

The two Brahmāśiras weapons met, and Arjuna took his own back. Aśvatthāmā told Vyāsa that he could not recall his. Vyāsa told him to turn it elsewhere. Aśvatthāmā turned the astra (weapon) toward the womb of Uttarā. She was the daughter of Virāṭa and the wife of the slain Abhimanyu, and she carried the last heir of the Kuru line (Sauptika Parva, Chapters 13–15).

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa then made his vow. The child in Uttarā’s womb would be born. By his own tapas-vīrya and satya-vīrya (the strength of his austerity and of his truth) he would bring back to life the child struck by the astra, and the boy would live. A vow had been made earlier in Kṛshṇa’s presence at Upaplavya that the Pāṇḍava line would not end, and Kṛshṇa would keep it.

The boy was named Parīkshit, “the one tested (parīkshita) in the womb”. He was to rule for sixty years as a dharmarāja (king of dharma) of the Kuru line. Uttarā gave birth to the last king of the great Kuru age (Sauptika Parva, Chapter 16).

Grief at Abhimanyu’s body

Chapter 20 of the Strī Parva has a long and moving lament, in which Gāndhārī describes Uttarā grieving over the fallen Abhimanyu. Gāndhārī says: “There is Virāṭa’s daughter, Gāṇḍīvī’s daughter-in-law — in great anguish, she goes to her young, heroic husband and weeps terribly.”

Uttarā goes to Abhimanyu’s body and reaches out to touch him. She gently takes off his armour from his bloodied body and looks at the beauty of his form. She speaks to him in a long lament. She recalls how he used to greet her with joy and love even from far away. She calls out to Subhadrā and to his fathers. She weeps that, though the Pāṇḍavas and the Pāñcālas were there, her young husband was left unguarded, surrounded by many mahārathas and struck down.

She says: “I will reach the worlds you have won by your weapons and your dharma — wait for me there.” She says that six months of their marriage had passed and the seventh month was going by when he left.

The Strī Parva then shows her placing Abhimanyu’s blood-soaked head in her lap and smoothing his hair with her hands. She keeps weeping while the royal women of Matsya, also weeping, pull her back. She was a young bride of barely half a year, already carrying the last heir of the Kuru line, and she wept over a husband who died before he could see his child.

Aśvamedhika Parva: grief, the withering womb and the stillbirth

Abhimanyu’s death was confirmed to the Vṛshṇis at Dvārakā. Kuntī then told Subhadrā that Uttarā was with child and asked that she be cared for with great care (Chapter 61).

Back at Hastināpura, Uttarā was filled with grief for her husband and refused food for many days. She grew weak, and the child in her womb withered even while it lived. Vyāsa saw this with his divine sight. He came to comfort her and Kuntī in person, and he foretold that a son of great tejas (radiance) would be born and would rule the earth after the Pāṇḍavas (Chapter 62).

When the time came, the child was born lifeless, struck by Aśvatthāmā’s brahmāstra even in the womb (Chapter 66). Uttarā’s lament over the dead child, before Kṛshṇa, is one of the longest personal griefs in the Aśvamedhika Parva. She recalled that she had vowed to end her own life if Abhimanyu died in battle, and that she had not kept that vow. She begged Kṛshṇa to bring back to life “this son of Abhimanyu, scorched by Droṇa’s son’s weapon” (Chapter 68).

She fell down holding the child. When she came to herself, she lifted him and had him offer praṇāma (a bow) to Kṛshṇa on his own behalf. Kṛshṇa then drew back the brahmāstra and, by his satya-kriyā (an act of truth), brought the child back to life. The child was named Parīkshit (Chapters 69–70). The Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapters 61, 62, 66 and 68 to 70, tells all this.

Āśramavāsika Parva

Uttarā is named in two places in the Āśramavāsika Parva. In Chapter 15 she carries her infant son Parīkshit among the women who went with Dhṛtarāshṭra’s vānaprastha procession (the departure to the forest) out of Hastināpura. In Chapter 25 she is named again among the Pāṇḍava household whom Sañjaya presents to the ṛshis at the āśrama of Śatayūpa on Kurukshetra.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Virāṭa Parva, Chapters 37, 64, 71–72
• Mahābhārata, Sauptika Parva, Chapters 13–16
• Mahābhārata, Strī Parva, Chapter 20
• Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapters 61–70
• Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 15, 25